Wyatt’s World: Essays for Idiosyncratic Exploration

Essays are a very particular and concentrated form of writing. As such, they are often a place where writers feel free to follow their own idiosyncratic explorations. Collections, therefore, often make for strange and wonderful company and are particularly useful for getting a sense of a writer. These five, a newly minted National Book Critics Circle Award (NBCC) winner and four new or soon-to-be-published works, hold great promise to delight, challenge, and surprise.

John Barth’s Final Fridays (Counterpoint)

Geoff Dyer’s Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, winner of the 2012 NBCC Award for criticism (Graywolf)

Jonathan Franzen’s Farther Away (Farrar)

William Gibson’s Distrust That Particular Flavor (Putnam)

Marilynne Robinson’s When I Was a Child I Read Books (Farrar)

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Neal Wyatt compiles LJ's online feature Wyatt's World and is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007). She is a collection development and readers' advisory librarian from Virginia. Those interested in contributing to The Reader's Shelf should contact her directly at Readers_Shelf@comcast.net